(Because it was more than five thousand words, it was a bit late.)
After the summer of the first year of Xiangfu, there was a piece of news that shook the court.
The Great General of An Country, Yang Shenxing, faced an enemy of less than ten thousand people. The forty thousand Ji Nan elite soldiers were defeated again and again. First, he lost almost half of his cavalry and retreated to Qingyang Basin. Being attacked from the front and back, his cavalry was completely wiped out. After this battle, Yang Shenxing, who had lost his integrity in his old age, became a rat on the street. In Great An City, other than the Ministry of War that Lu Baijie was in charge of, the other five ministries and two imperial censors all started wave after wave of accusations against the old general. They all had reason and evidence, saying that he had ignored the orders of the main general, Lu Sheng Xiang, and had gone south without permission. After going south, they revealed that this person was "old." Not only did he not have a good command of the troops, he was also muddle-headed in the direction of the troops. Facing the remaining forces of West Chu, he was reduced to a state where he could not even take a single blow! Where was the invincible Li Yang, where was the prestige of the nation?
Yang Shenxing did not have the time to care about the unrest in the court. The old general and his forty thousand Ji Nan infantrymen that were still intact had become a turtle in a jar. Even he felt it was absurd and laughable.
No matter how the white-haired Great General tried to hide it, he still showed an aged appearance. The eldest son, Yang Huchen, had survived the cavalry battle more than a decade ago, but had lost an arm. His grandson, Yang Wenqi, had also been heavily injured in the battle six days ago. Even now, he was still lying on his sickbed with the stench of medicine. Yang Shenxing had never fought such a humiliating battle. It was not a big deal that Huchen's three thousand light cavalry could not win against the one thousand heavy cavalry. Victory and defeat were common in the military. It was Yang Shenxing who had let down his guard and violated the taboo of the military. The old man did not have many complaints. However, the development of the situation made General An Guo almost kill someone. The three thousand soldiers who did not suffer too many casualties in the first cavalry battle actually requested to leave the army immediately after witnessing the power of the heavy cavalry's charge. They passed through Qingyang Basin and retreated to the north of Qinshui and Jindu. Yang Shenxing did not reject them. He only suggested that they slowly retreated with the infantry to prevent the enemy's light cavalry from launching an attack. Unexpectedly, after receiving the news, those bastards agreed to it verbally, brought their personal guards and retainers and fled to the north in the middle of the night. After receiving the news, Yang Shenxing had no choice but to move his camp and follow them to the north. He also ordered his grandson, Yang Wenqi, to dispatch almost all the cavalry to escort them. Yang Shenxing could only hope that the main general of West Chu, who was in charge of the eastern battle, could not seize the opportunity to separate their infantry and cavalry. He did not even hesitate to have the vanguard pretend to be attacking Biao's army. However, in the early morning of the second day, his grandson, who was covered in blood, only brought back a few hundred Southern Ji cavalry. The three thousand plus chief culprits, his grandfather's soldiers, were safe and sound. Yang Wenqi, who had a large piece of flesh cut off from his shoulder, wept silently. He said that the enemy's light cavalry were very good at night battles. They had split into several groups and not only did they attack their hastily prepared Southern Ji cavalry, they even purposely drove the three thousand cavalry, who could not even be considered as useless, southward to disrupt their formation. Yang Wenqi's cavalry could only form a battalion of three hundred men and sent them to their deaths in batches. Only then did they manage to protect the two thousand eight hundred men who deserved to die but could not die.
After his grandson fainted, Yang Shenxing interrogated a few Lieutenant Commanders who were defeated and turned back. The old general was getting more and more terrified. According to them, not only were the enemy cavalry good at ambushing at night, they were also skilled in archery. They could even imitate the hunting tactics of Beimang barbarians in the outer perimeter. They did not get close to the enemy nor did they stay far away. They always maintained a distance of two arrows, charging forward with one arrow, shooting out a rain of arrows, and then retreating. This kind of wandering tactic that lacked cohesion was not invulnerable. If his grandson, Yang Wenqi, had just left the three thousand cavalrymen behind, he would not have had to pay such a huge and bloody price. After that, there were no more movements from Yang Shenxing's side. Only small groups of cavalrymen were wandering far away from the encirclement leisurely, shooting down the scouts who tried to send out military intelligence. Once Yang Shenxing showed any signs of movement, the enemy would quickly mobilize their cavalrymen and gather them at the Green Rice Basin at the back. There were also one thousand cavalrymen waiting in the distance, ready to charge forward.
It was at that moment that Yang Shenxing finally realized that the enemy commander had never thought of competing with the Southern Ji infantry. Instead, he had predicted the mentality of Yang Shenxing and the three thousand cavalrymen with a special identity. First, he lured the Yang cavalry to attack, which would weaken their morale. Right from the beginning, he used the heavy cavalrymen to scare the wits of those profligate sons. He guessed that these bastards would disregard the overall situation and flee for their lives, and that the Southern Ji cavalry would be forced to escort them. Then, he cut the flesh with a blunt knife and devoured the cavalrymen bit by bit. It could be said that Yang Shenxing had a whole new level of respect for the strength of the enemy. However, as a veteran of hundreds of battles, the old general had no fear in his heart. He had lost because Yang Shenxing had to take two risks in a row. The first time, he purposely gave them a military merit, and the second time, he wanted to save their lives. In the end, the price he had to pay was the death of the few thousand cavalrymen of Southern Ji cavalry!
After all, the old soldiers of Southern Ji were brought up by Yang Shenxing himself. Even though they had suffered such a crushing defeat, the old soldiers of Southern Ji were, after all, the soldiers under Yang Shenxing's tutelage. They didn't cry and wail. Instead, they quietly set up their tents in an orderly manner at a place where the river was dense and the water was abundant. They dug out three trenches, and behind the trenches was a twenty feet tall protective dam. Between the wide trenches, which were about the height of two men, they tried their best to cut off a large amount of tough tree trunks and branches, sharpened them and nailed them to the bottom. The tips of the trees, which had been roasted with fire, were arranged in a straight line, interweaving and connecting with each other. The soil inside and outside the trenches were all compacted. One after another, sturdy watchtowers rose from the ground, and tents were erected. The army of Southern Ji had an ample amount of provisions, so they didn't have to rely heavily on the supply line behind them. Besides, the cavalrymen of Liyang Dynasty, especially at the end of Spring and Autumn, with the support of the unobstructed posthouse routes, the first class of elite soldiers could travel a distance of one hundred miles in half a day. Also, when it was purely light cavalry, they could reach a speed that made people speechless. Lu Shengxiang's elite cavalrymen were said to be able to travel a distance of three hundred miles in a day. It was even faster than Chu Lushan's one thousand cavalrymen in the past. However, the latter was traveling on the Shu Road after all. As for the posthouse cavalrymen, they were not included in the list.
Regardless of how many posthouse stations were reduced in Liyang Dynasty due to the complaints of those civil officials who were desperately complaining about being poor, the posthouse routes in the southern region of Jingji were still unobstructed. This was the source of Yang Shenxing's confidence. All he had to do was to wait for the reinforcements. Before that, they would not be besieged to death, and there was no need for Southern Ji Army to act in desperation.
However, Yang Shenxing was still exhausted, and his mind was even more haggard than when he was fighting on the battlefield. In order to appease those sons of wealthy families in the capital who were hiding and crying for their parents, the old general, who had already suffered a great loss in the war, did not even dare to speak harshly. He knew the reason why the Assistant Minister of War, Lu Shengxiang, had so little military power in his hands. It was because those old civil officials in the capital had been secretly hindering him. When an army was sent to war, it was not something that could be settled by just one General, or even one Ministry of War. If the Ministry of Revenue wanted to delay the march, they could find dozens of excuses to delay the march, and no one could find a reason to refute them. The fathers of one thousand sons of wealthy families in the capital had joined hands and created a mess in the imperial court of Liyang Dynasty, making it impossible for Lu Shengxiang to quickly control the entire army. However, after he learned about the battle in Qingyang Basin and learned that his sons and grandsons were trapped, he was able to help the fate of the six divisions become extremely smooth overnight.
The reason why Yang Shenxing had brought along the cavalry army, which looked like a golden jade on the outside but was actually rotten on the inside, was because the old general knew better than anyone else that the imperial court of Liyang Dynasty was a needle hidden in silk floss. However, Yang Shenxing did not expect the enemy's main general to be so insidious and ruthless.
As Yang Shenxing expected, in the imperial court of Taian City, although countless people were denouncing Yang Shenxing for his crimes, the Minister of War, Lu Baijie, who had not been able to say anything during this period of time, suddenly seemed to be a man of his word. Those officials who had previously felt that Yang Shenxing's 40,000 and Yan Zhenchun's 30,000 and 70,000 men and horses were making a big fuss over a minor issue, and that it was equivalent to killing a chicken with a butcher's knife, changed their faces overnight. They all spoke in unison about the craftiness of the remnants of West Chu and that they were preparing to fight to the death with the imperial army on the front line north of Qiao Huai. They needed to send another veteran general with meritorious service to the battlefield. Lu Shengxiang? As the Commander-in-Chief, he had allowed Yang Shenxing's troops to be besieged. This was an extreme oversight. He was not punished only because it was not appropriate to change the Commander-in-Chief at the last minute!
Lu Baijie's suggestion was drowned out by the ferocious discussion in the imperial court. Lu Shengxiang needed to atone for his crimes through meritorious service. Other than the title of Commander-in-Chief, in reality, he did not have many troops that could be used for meritorious service. The one who truly led the troops was still the veteran general Wu Jun, who used troops steadily. This time, he had mobilized the 30,000 elite soldiers of the Jingji Fifth Army.
Furthermore, under a secret order from the Ministry of War, Yan Zhenchun had marched down from the Dongyu plains and finally stopped in the area of the scattered warehouses. Then, he would turn to the east and assume the position of a large army pressing down on the border from a commanding position. This was to support Wu Jun's 30,000 troops. When the time came, whether Yan Zhenchun's cavalry would attack or defend would still depend on the orders from the Ministry of War.
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